As part of my training, I devoted a little time to a less technical training and more application of technology. The presentation below is actually a set a screen shots from a Smart Notebook file. You will not see the interactivity, however please read the show notes to understand the presentation. There is a link to a Google Doc as well that outlines all the details of each slide.

Link to the "How Did She Do That" document explaining the Smart Notebook.

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It has been some time since I've even written in this blog. Hopefully my reasons will be clear near the end. Most of my entries are about ways to integrate technology in teaching. However, this entry is my final reflection, 6 months after attending the Google Teacher Academy in Seattle Washington.

I was overwhelmed when I received the acceptance email to attend the academy. (I jumped out of my seat at ISTE) I spent little time contemplating what I would learn, who I would meet, who I'd become or who I might influence. Now that I have watched my fellow graduates, I see the impact that Google Certified Teachers have on the world. They are inspirational, motivational, and some of the best presenters in education (you were fantastic Adam Bellow at VSTE). Other GCT's such as Kyle Pace, Alice Keeler, Jen Roberts, Karen McMillan and Troy Cochrum are the pioneers that teachers look to for advice and direction. I am awed at the content they produce and the "think out of the box" attitude that pervades everything a GCT does.

I really did start with great intentions for my small part of the world as well. I blogged, tweeted, G plussed and bookmarked hundreds of cool tools, sites and ideas for teaching. My idea for a cross platform app database was big (probably too big for one person) but I designed it anyway.

I began the school year very hyped about using these delivery methods for the best new ideas direct from the Google Academy to my teachers. Yet, what I found was that teachers in my district are not nearly as connected as this fast moving train of EdTech. Some had never heard of blogs, many were afraid of Twitter, and video's posted on YouTube just did not hold a candle to a Word document with instructions. Much of my job (I am a Tech Specialist in my school) turned into data entry and pushing information in the closed environment of Blackboard or through individual emails. The tools felt archaic, clumsy, and not connected to what I knew was the real world. So I became disappointed. If I tweeted, the only people receiving the message where the experts in the field. If I blog, my thoughts about 21st Century Learning or my dislike of the standardized testing model was like preachin to the choir. How could I affect the model of teaching right there in front of me?

As much as I love technology, I also love talking. So I started to talk. I spoke to teachers about Google, how kids learn, why 2011 is different than 2001. How to look at a standard, shrug your shoulders (thanks Patrick Green), and give the kids the opportunity to design the learning. I talked with the principal about cost of hardware, what is doable now vs what we can plan for in the future. I reexamined my idea of training and created short, to the point sessions (demo slams perhaps?) And yes, we all encouraged experimentation.

My first real victory was with the district itself. Fairfax County Schools was planning on rolling out Google Apps for Education in November. I pushed to have our school start in October and was granted my wish. I trained the students how to log on and find the apps that our district was allowing this year. Not as many as I had wished for, but enough to really get started. I began training teachers at the same time Google was changing their look, their labs and some of the functionality. Seemed I would show them a feature one day and it would be gone the next. Connectivity was an issue too, but I held firm that Google was the best venue for kids.

It is 6 months later, so what has changed at my school? More than I realized before I started this reflection. My principal agreed to 128 new netbooks that are cranking out Google Docs creations every day in 7th grade. We have all administrators and counselors working on iPads and examining how to integrate them with students and our infrastructure. We have a Twitter presence, a training channel on YouTube for technology, a new more modern website that uses RSS feeds and the whole school is promoting Bring Your Own Devices for the students. There are 2 Math teachers creating videos to flip their classes and I even have an English department using Today's Meet as a backchannel in class.

I may not have thousands of followers yet and really haven't even updated the template on this blog, but I have had an impact in my little world, where 60 teachers are changing what they do everyday with students. I could not have done that without the Google Teacher Academy support. They are the heroes. If you are looking for anyone to follow, check out some of the names I've mentioned or just look for the hash tag #GCT. I also wish the best of luck to the next group that gets that acceptance email. The inspiration will stick with you throughout your career. Thanks to all.

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If another article on what to buy at Christmas is just too much, consider the taxpayer or perhaps even the students. Yes, I'm talking about school technology purchases of which I've been doing my share lately. I'm looking on cyber Monday at deals: Chromebooks are on sale for $299. That is an amazing price for a machine that really uses class time efficiently, (8 seconds to boot up) slims down the learning curve (one browser, one interface, no complex operating system) and from an IT standpoint is a dream. But until recently, schools were expected to go with the lease option that is still at a whopping $20 per machine per month. (keep in mind that includes summer months) Google has recently offered a purchase plan that, well, just can't touch the deals online. Currently, schools can purchase a WiFi Chromebook for $449 each with 1 year support. Additional support for years 2 and 3 come at a price of $5 per month per unit. The math is elementary. $449+($5x24) =$569. That is almost twice the price of an Acer Chromebook I can purchase right now as an individual.
So what is Google giving us as educational institutions we can't buy elsewhere? The appeal for the leased model is the management of the Chrome browser using SMS and of course continual support. From what I can tell, IT can lock down the homepage and deploy Chrome store apps with the Chrome deployment and use current Active Directory users profiles. After a quick browse of Chrome Apps in the Web Store I found I could accomplish these tasks with a few apps on each Is Google's expertise worth the high price tag? I'm willing to view this device as I tend to do with my own home tech purchases. It will be obsolete in 3 years so i'd consider it a consumable item. Either that, or petition Google to bring the price in line with other mobile devices for students.

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Share a Google Spreadsheet - 21 Ideas for Your Class
As I venture off to the Google office to become a Google Certified Teacher, I thought this list of how I have used spreadsheets in the past in my teaching would be a useful one. Spreadsheets are so underutilized in schools and are yet so versatile. Many of these ideas were spur of the moment in my classroom - such as signing students up for specific projects or tasks. I didn't even realize that sharing a spreadsheet and allowing students to fill it in was a unique use of technology, it just facilitated what I was doing. You are welcome to add to the comments any other uses you have for shared spreadsheets. There are many more but I have always thought 21 was a good number.




https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AXy343L_u9RsZGZjeDN4NzZfMzI2Zzkyc24yaGM&hl=en_US

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Why We Love Apps
I found an app the other day that does one thing and it does it well. I like to listen to a particular podcast but the process to subscribe and then move it to my phone was very tedious. The app has a single purpose and it delivers my favorite podcast, no other, to my phone. Fabulous.
Yes I'm an AppAholic. (here's the link to a UK blog) It is important to me to understand my addiction and determine what caused this craving for specialty programming. I am of a generation that has lived through all of the transformations. The operating systems with the green text where we as consumers had to learn long strings of commands to create a process that only did a portion of what we really wanted. I've also been privileged to teach the Microsoft Office Suite - going on 8 years now. If anyone has ever opened MS Office with a group of 1st graders you will immediately have that recognition reflex. It is like sticking a 1 pound steak in front of a kitten. They poke at it but don't have any idea how to attack it. MS Office is a behemoth. It does far more than any of us will ever need to do. In fact, most of the software of today is the same way. All of the big companies want to be everything to everyone and we are overwhelmed.
Let's talk about education as well. I am heading to a curriculum development meeting to develop lessons that go with the new online textbook. Another behemoth is the textbook. Every teacher knows they rarely use a tenth of what is available to them as resources and finding what they really want to use takes years. At that point a new text is out and the process starts over. This online text is the same way. Luckily, I've taught with it and can bring some insight. So I am the guide through the forest. Just as I was when teaching MS Office.
Back to our apps now. As educators, we are desperate for lessons that are on target for what we need to teach. We love the online flashcards that we can easily program for chapter 10's list. That is why iPad/Android apps are so appealing. Do one thing and do it well. Don't give us a timeline maker. Give us a timeline maker for the Depression that only leads students to age appropriate materials with a simple interface. Web 2.0 has been a great start, but we want these activities to be student driven. Hence the apps rule.  

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I am an avid Voicethread fan. Even though I only used it for one year in my history class, I found it engaging to students and really made me think where my lessons were going. So I'll outline below how I used it and how I should have used Voicethread which I just found out at ISTE yesterday.

My students were taught to work in 3's. Not just in groups, but in Voicethread, they were asked to comment 3 times, on 3 slides, and to collaborate by combining three separate concepts into 1. I'll elaborate. I created something called a PSI or Primary Source Investigation. The students were asked to figure out how the three primary sources related to each other. The whole concept was to take them to a higher level of thinking. So we did several things like the American Indians, Wild Bill Hickock and the Carlyle Scholl in Pennsylvania to help them figure out how assimilation worked or didn't. We tried the 3 dictators from WWII in order to find similarities and differences. I monitored the comments and had just one rule: every comment needed to add something new to the discussion. If it did not, it would not be accepted. Moderation helped with that rule.

Now with the new iPad app and the html management available to teachers, I can image a teacher visiting a museum and creating the tour in Voicethread. Using just an iPhone, a teacher could walk around the museum and comment on how what he/she was seeing relates to the curriculum. Once at school, students can experience the field trip through the teacher's eyes, answer probing questions and interact with the teachers footsteps through the museum rather than a canned virtual tour.

Today I learned how one school district is using Voicethread as a student portfolio system. If you have never worked with Voicethread before, it is a beautiful archival option as well because it accepts MS Word Documents as well as Excel Spreadsheets and of course PowerPoint. You can also upload movies. Any photo, including screen shots works too. The ability of the teacher to leave Voicecomments is tremendous. And now when uploading student accounts, a Graduation Date option is available for easy tracking of school year and their progress. Each year, students can upload their best work with included teacher comments

If you teach foreign language you've already heard of the magic of Rosetta Stone. I've envisioned Voicethread as a custom Rosetta Stone - like environment for students if a teacher is willing to put in the time to create the exercises. Rosetta Stone harnesses it's power through visuals and voice, I think Voicethread has that down pat.

If you have any interesting uses for Voicethread in the classroom, leave me a comment.

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We have the capability to instantaneously acquire a student's understanding of nearly anything taught. Here at ISTE 2011, vendors abound with clickers, forms, surveys, exit tickets, computer graded writing, peer assessment, class exchanges and so many other options to grade on the spot. I was particularly fascinated by the Virginia SOL tests this year. Being computerized, these high stakes tests are administered en masse and results delivered within days. The flurry of teachers who flocked to get their results surprised me. I always understood assessment to be what the student had achieved. But teachers see these tests as a measure of what they achieved. The results are not provided to the individual students until much later and have very little meaning to them except a pass/no pass message.

Ok, I may have my formative and summative assessments confused you say? I'm not the only one. Teachers are frequently calling their end of the week quizzes as formative and the on-going project as summative. And they love the instantaneous gradebook fillers that come from the computerized world. Spreadsheets are easy to import. In our district we use these online tests as formative sometimes and summative other times. Not only are students confused as to why they are assessed every step of the way, but there is no rhyme or reason for the assessment in their eyes. Based on observations, students see these online tests as a collaborative game to beat a score. Teachers do use them occasionally to pad the gradebook too. Either way, I think as adults we would resent our employers evaluating us on 5 or more skill areas every 15 minutes, especially on a Monday. There are a lot of student response systems here at ISTE. I personally think they are wonderful uses of technology. I see them as a method to deliver and focus instruction, not really an assessment device. So with that perspective, they are excellent advances in the classroom. But technology doesn't always have to be instantaneous to be an advancement. We should look at the other alternatives available to us in a digital world. I like to think of it in medieval terms as the "masterpiece." Remember that in order to learn a trade in the middle ages there were steps along the way such as apprentice, journeyman and then master. In order to obtain master status, a final culminating project defined their very best efforts. How does technology aid in this type of assessment. Students can produce many masterpieces over the period of their school career. These are collected digitally and represent the student's attained level of mastery. I'm advocating cloud based digital portfolios but with more student control. It is only fair to notify students when they will be assessed and to give them the best optimum chance to succeed in that assessment. Students should be the owners of their portfolio, given lessons on good portfolio presentations and rubrics for what to include. As they progress and move from school to school, the portfolio should follow and evolve as technology changes. Let them put their best foot forward and take the time to show us something outstanding.

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